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The More We Learn About the TPP, the Worse It Looks

March 29, 2014Benjamin Clement

Leaked documents from TPP negotiations continue to show us this deal is bad for the U.S. With it’s corporate handouts, changes in food and drug safety, patent laws and Internet enforcement, it is clear the TPP will not help the U.S. For years negotiators have met in secret, with details concealed from public scrutiny, or even legislative scrutiny. Among these negotiators have been over 600 corporate lobbyists incorporated into the negotiating process as “corporate trade advisors.” Their number one goal is not to protect the American people, but to protect their profit margin.

This is backdoor legislating by corporate interests that will only keep the U.S. firmly mired in a plutocracy. New details that emerge from the negotiations continue to show that this means new deals for corporate interests while selling out the American people.

The TPP has provisions that affect many aspects of American industry, including increasing the patents on medicines from 17 to 20 years, meaning more profits for pharmaceutical companies and higher costs for the individual.

There are provisions which would require internet service providers to crack down on file sharing and even deny you Internet access if you violate those provisions. This is another attempt at backdoor legislating, attempting to accomplish what the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was designed to do. As you might remember, this legislation was strongly opposed and stopped in the U.S. due to public outcry.

Our continued participation in the TPP negotiations shows our country is deteriorating from protecting the public interest to protecting the corporate profit margin, and that special interest groups are gaining more power from these backdoor legislative deals. In order to protect the American people from these bad deals we must act now to stop Fast Track and stop the TPP.